Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes (left) and Norman Reedus as Daryl Dixon in AMC's "The Walking Dead." The original show takes place in Georgia; a planned spinoff will be set in LA. PHOTO: Frank Ockenfels/AMC

AMC has shattered our hopes that the long-talked-about spinoff of The Walking Dead might be set in Dallas. I was so looking forward to the awkward sight of, say, zombies trekking through the oh-so-gorgeous Winspear Opera House, or draped nastily atop the steers at Pioneer Plaza. But noooooooooo … it’s going to be in Los Angeles. The Sunset Strip will get our zombies, and perhaps the Hollywood sign.

According to our colleages at tvline.com:

“The zombie apocalypse is spreading to the Left Coast! One of the key unanswered questions surrounding AMC’s in-the-works Walking Dead spinoff — where will it be set? — can now be revealed. TVLine has learned exclusively that the potential series (the pilot of which will be shot in early 2015) will be based in… Los Angeles.

AMC promised that TWD: 2.0 will shed light on a new, previously unseen corner of the zombie apocalypse — perhaps one where the living outnumber the undead. ‘Almost from the beginning of The Walking Dead on AMC, fans have been curious about what is going on in the zombie apocalypse in other parts of the world,’ said AMC President Charlie Collier back in September. It’s unclear if the show will actually be shot in L.A., or another city that could double as the City of Angels (i.e. Vancouver). [OR HEY! DALLAS!]
As TVLine previously reported, there’s buzz that the offshoot — penned by showrunner Dave Erickson and TWD creator Robert Kirkman — will be a prequel of sorts, one that would chronicle the early days of the epidemic and the effort to contain it.

UPDATED: The time for this, originally 6:15 according to AMC, has been changed from 6:15 p.m. to 7:25 p.m.

AMC is certainly promoting the heck out of its Breaking Bad spin-off, Better Call Saul, which the network has said will premiere in February. AMC is in the midst of an all-episodes marathon that will end Sunday night.

The Better Call Saul music video will air on TNT at 7:25 p.m. on Sunday (Oct. 5). It was co-written by the show’s executive producers and co-showrunners Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould and series Dave Porter (who also created the opening theme and score for Breaking Bad). The song will be performed by country artist Junior Brown. We expect that it won’t be completely serious.

Jeremy Schwartz and Tina Parker star in "Thinner Than Water" at Kitchen Dog Theater. But Tina needs to head back to New Mexico to keep Saul Goodman in line.

But hey, what we’re really wondering is when are they going to call fabulous Dallas actor Tina Parker, co-artistic director of Kitchen Dog Theater (she’s acting there now in Thinner Than Water), who played Francesca, Saul’s feisty secretary on Breaking Bad? Saul needs a gatekeeper in the front office, right, and NOBODY could do it better than Tina Parker/Francesca!

SXSW Film isn’t just for film anymore. Two years after HBO’s Girls premiered at the annual Austin gathering, the festival has made the small screen a feature attraction with its new Episodic category. Among the hot items this year: Halt and Catch Fire, the new AMC series set in Dallas (shot in Atlanta) and premiering June 1.

Saturday morning brought a preview screening of the pilot episode, with most of the principals and creative talent in attendance. If the opening salvo is any indication the show should be another feather in the cap of the cable network that brought us Mad Men and Breaking Bad.

Lake Highlands native Scoot McNairy (Argo) stars as a troubled computer programmer passing his time for a small company in ’80s Dallas. Along comes a former IBM executive (Lee Pace) determined to put his new employer on the map at the expense of his old one. IBM: Not pleased. Mackenzie Davis also stars as a punkish young computer prodigy.

I was impressed with Halt’s conjuring and developing of three vivid protagonists in the space of 40-odd minutes. I just wish the show were shot in Dallas, not Atlanta. So does McNairy, who graduated from Lake Highlands High School in 1996.

“A very large part of me wishes it was shot there,” says McNairy, who also has a part in the SXSW film Frank. “I’ve had that dream that I could be back to Dallas and hang out with my buddies, with a job I love doing. I’m still campaigning for it.”

But he knows the reality. Halt and Catch Fire was shot in Atlanta for the same reason Dallas Buyers Club was shot in New Orleans: Texas can’t (or won’t) compete on the state tax incentive level.

“Somebody needs to talk to the governor or something,” he says. “If they can get better tax incentives, I can fight to get this show moved there.”

One saving grace? “I’ve come to the conclusion that Atlanta looks like Oak Cliff,” he says. “It has those hills.”

We’ll have more on McNairy and Halt and Catch Fire closer to its broadcast premiere.

NBC released “Friday Night at the Luncheonette” as the first offering in its four-part digital series while Parenthood takes a hiatus during the 2014 Winter Olympics.

The 18-minute webisode recently premiered on NBC.com, Hulu and YouTube.

In the first episode, Dallas-born Jesse Plemons, reprising his role as Landry Clarke, and Baylor-educated Derek Phillips, reprising his role as Billy Riggins, crash the Braverman brothers’ recording studio.

Amber Braverman (Mae Whitman) is left watching after cousin Max (Max Burkholder) while working after hours at her uncles’ studio.

Landry’s metal band Crucifictorious, taking a tip from a friend-of-a-friend, is looking to record a track.

Billy, who once appeared as a character named Billy on Parenthood in 2012, brings in his usual posse of party-crashers and the Luncheonette turns into another one of those Riggins brothers beer parties.

For fans of the two shows, it’s a must-see. It was cool to see Amber wearing an East Dillon T-shirt and Billy teaching Max how to throw a perfect spiral. Even better was the final scene in which someone spray-painted “Texas Forever” on the Luncheonette’s doors.

Perhaps the best part was seeing Plemons become likeable. His last major TV appearance was as the psycho Todd in AMC’s Breaking Bad.

Zombies, like misery, love company. AMC has announced the development of a “companion series” to its smash hit brains fest The Walking Dead. Target date: 2015.

From the press release:

AMC announced today that the network is in the initial stages of developing a companion series to its original drama series The Walking Dead, which premiered on AMC in October of 2010. The Walking Dead is currently the #1 show on television among adults 18-49. Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and David Alpert are on board as executive producers, with AMC Studios set to produce. The companion series has a target on-air date of 2015.

“Building on the success of the most popular show on television for adults 18-49 is literally a no-brainer,” said Charlie Collier, AMC’s president and general manager. “We look forward to working with Robert, Gale and Dave again as we develop an entirely new story and cast of characters. It’s a big world and we can’t wait to give fans another unforgettable view of the zombie apocalypse.”

“After 10 years of writing the comic book series and being so close to the debut of our fourth, and in my opinion, best season of the TV series, I couldn’t be more thrilled about getting the chance to create a new corner of The Walking Dead universe,” said Kirkman. “The opportunity to make a show that isn’t tethered by the events of the comic book, and is truly a blank page, has set my creativity racing.”

In addition to Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Hell on Wheels and Low Winter Sun, AMC recently greenlit two new drama series for 2014, Halt & Catch Fire and Turn. The network today began shooting a new pilot, Line Of Sight, directed and executive produced by Jonathan Demme, and has a licensing agreement with Sony Pictures Television for a spinoff series of Vince Gilligan’s landmark Breaking Bad, based on the Saul Goodman lawyer character with the working title Better Call Saul.

Season four of The Walking Dead returns to AMC on October 13. The Walking Dead is based on the comic book series created and written by Robert Kirkman and published by Skybound, Kirkman’s imprint at Image Comics.

The Walking Dead season three out-delivered everything on television including The Big Bang Theory, The Voice, Game of Thrones, Modern Family, and almost doubled The Bible for the broadcast season for adults 18-49.

Great news for fans of Breaking Bad and, one assumes, Albuquerque: AMC and Sony Pictures Television have confirmed that they’ve reached a licensing agreement for a BB spinoff featuring Saul Goodman, the sleazy lawyer who represents meth king Walter White (Bryan Cranston) on the show. With only three more episodes of BB before it ends <sob!>, this is fabulous news indeed.

No word on whether Bob Odenkirk, who plays Saul, has been signed (but we can’t imagine it without him), or whether Dallas’ own Tina Parker (co-artistic director of Kitchen Dog Theater) who plays Saul’s feisty secretary Francesca, will have a part. She told us today that she doesn’t know yet. Here’s hoping!

The AMC press release says Better Call Saul (working title, and the PERFECT title!) will be an hourlong show that’s a prequel to BB, focusing on Saul’s evolution before he ever became Walter White’s attorney. No word on when it will start shooting or air, but stay tuned for updates here!

Jamie Bell, shown arriving at a premiere of his movie 'The Adventures of Tintin,' will star in a new scripted series for AMC. (PHOTO: Matt Sayles/The Associated Press)

OK, so we’re all getting ready emotionally for the end of two great series,Breaking Bad, whose last half-season begins Aug. 11, and Mad Men, whose next season will be its last. Urghhhhh!

There may be hope on the horizon, however: AMC, which brought us both those series, has green-lighted two new scripted series,Halt & Catch Fire and Turn, with production on both beginning later this year and both expected to premiere in 2014.

Halt & Catch Fire, set in the early 1980s in “Texas’ Sillicon Prairie” (do they mean Richardson?), dramatizes the personal computing boom through the eyes of a visionary, an engineer and a prodigy. It stars Lee Pace (Pushing Daisies), Scoot McNairy (Argo) and Mackenzie Rio Davis (Smashed).

Turn, based on the book Washington’s Spies by Alexander Rose, is set in the summer of 1778, and tells the story of a New York farmer who bands together with a group of friends to form the Culper Ring, a group of spied who help turn the tide for American independence. Sounds like Revolution, only during the actual revolution! It stars Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott, The Adventures of Tintin), Kevin McNally, Burn Gorman and Daniel Henshall.

Fingers crossed these are good. We’re gonna need some solace, and I suspect the Breaking Bad-is-over trauma will still feel fresh well into 2014.

I had a quibble with some of the casting, but I thought Willa Holland was mesmerizing as the prickly, complicated and brutally honest Davey Wexler and director Lawrence Blume, Judy’s son, captured the heart of this story about a teen struggling to deal with the loss of her beloved father, while fighting hard to keep her family intact. Check it out and let me know what you think.

All I want for Christmas is Robert Redford as "Jeremiah Johnson." (PHOTO: Warner Bros.)

So let’s just admit it, by this time of the holiday season, we’ve all had just about all we can stand of Rudolph, Scrooge, elves on shelves and certain miracles on certain streets.

AMC rides to the rescue of our holiday-addled brains wit a “Cowboys for Christmas” marathon airing Tuesday, Christmas Day, starting at 9 a.m. and going till midnight local time. It’s just the thing to get your mind off of elves and stuffing and onto your possible plans for seeing Quentin Tarantino’s spaghetti Western, Django Unchained.

John Wayne makes it a merry Christmas, podna', on AMC. (PHOTO: File/Warner Bros.)

The AMC lineup includes High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood),El Dorado (John Wayne), Jeremiah Johnson (Robert Redford), Hondo (Wayne), Big Jake (Wayne) and The Sons of Katie Elder (Wayne). Robert Redford at his grunge-manly best in Jeremiah Johnson? Yep, that’s enough to lure me away from the leftover Christmas cookies for at least a couple of hours!

If you’ve been spotting a cute little blue creature around town this week, no, you’re not crazy and the aliens from Avatar have not landed. It’s Smurfs Week and Smurfette has been making the rounds in anticipation of The Smurfs movie opening Friday (there will also be special screenings of The Smurfs for kids with special needs at select Studio Movie Grill and AMC theaters Aug. 6; I’ll have the details in my Aug. 5 KidBeat column).

Smurfette has been to Six Flags Over Texas, Barnes & Noble at Stonebriar Mall, the YMCA, the library, McDonald’s and is going to Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children later today. You can meet her in person and take pictures today from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Verizon Theatre at Grand Prairie. You can also meet her AND make your own Smurf Friday at Build-A-Bear Workshop at NorthPark Center Friday from 1 to 3 p.m., where the first 200 guests will receive a gift.